School closing due to fewer students

A middle school in the Dongdaemun area will become the first in Seoul to close due to declining enrollment.
Haeseong Girls’ Middle School in central Seoul will stop accepting new students next year, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education said yesterday.
During the past 25 years, the number of students across the nation has dropped by 2 million even though the country’s population has increased by 10 million, the Korean Educational Development Institute announced yesterday.
The number of students will continue to decline at a faster rate, the institute predicted, meaning a loss of another 2 million students by the end of 2017.
According to the institute and the statistical office, the number of Korean students will fall from 7.82 million in 2005 to 5.8 million in 2017. South Korea’s fertility rate is the lowest among the 31 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, at 1.16 children per woman of childbearing age as of 2004.

By Lee Sang-eon JoongAng Ilbo/ Kim Soe-jung Staff Writer [soejung@joongang.co.kr]